Part 1
THE INNER WAY BY JOHN TAULER
(1300-1361) FRIAR PREACHER OF
STRASBURG BEING THIRTY-SIX SERMONS
FOR FESTIVALS
A NEW TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN EDITED WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR WOLLASTON HUTTON, M.A.
RECTOR OF ST MARY-LE-BOW
CHEAPSIDE
METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX ST. W.C.
LONDON SECOND EDITION FIRST PUBLISHED MAY 1901 SECOND EDITION NOVEMBER 1909 LIGHTLY EDITED BY JFAUDIOSTUFF 2014
INTRODUCTION
I; Scope of the Present Publication
The version here presented will be found as a whole, readable and easy; and it should serve to render more familiar one of the most notable figures in the history of the Christian Church; one whose teaching shows how essential is the unity that underlies a spiritual conception of the Christian Creed, however much its exponents may differ as to matters of form.
A word must be said in explanation of the title, "The Inner Way," which the present volume bears. It is used merely by way of convenience, at the request of the publishers.
II; Some Notes on Tauler's Life
He was born at Strasburg, about the year 1300, of a respectable citizen family, dwelling in a house "near the Miller's Bridge." At an early age (Preger says at fifteen) he entered the Dominican convent at Strasburg as a novice; and he was through life a brother of that "Order of Preachers," known in England as the "Black Friars." He passed the two years of his novitiate and the eight years of his preliminary study in his native city; and then, as a brother of much promise, he was sent to the studium Generale at Cologne for a further period of four years. It is interesting to note that, during those early years at Strasburg, the nave of the Cathedral, as we now see it, was fresh and white from the mason's chisel, while the great western facade was in process of erection. There he would have heard the sermons of his master, Eckhart, usually reckoned the most intellectual of the German mystics and the founder of German philosophy. He would have heard him again at Cologne, where Eckhart had the misfortune to be accused of Pantheism, but was acquitted after trial by the Inquisition. At Strasburg Tauler would also have known the mystic, John of Sternengassen, and the theologian, John of Dambach; and he would have studied the authors he most frequently quotes, Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Hugo and Richard of St Victor, Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. Logic, Scripture, and the Sentences of Peter Lombard
formed part of the regular curriculum of his preliminary training; and it is supposed that, when he proceeded to Cologne at the age of twenty-five, he had already been ordained priest, and had definitely adopted that mystical standpoint in religion by which he will always be distinguished.
At this date the Dominican order occupied a position similar to that of the Jesuits two or three centuries later. It was the nursery of great preachers and theologians, and royal confessors were usually chosen from it. At Cologne Tauler would come to know several of the more learned men of his order; and it was there that his training was probably completed. From a passage in one of his sermons: it has been inferred that he proceeded to Paris; but there is no certain trace of him in the Acta of that University; and it is more likely that he returned direct from Cologne to Strasburg. Neither is there any evidence that at Cologne he took the degree of "Master in holy Scripture," (a degree equivalent to that of "Doctor in Theology"); and this he could only have done either at Paris or Cologne. In all the MSS. previous to the fifteenth century he is described simply as "Brother John Tauler"; and this is evidence against his being the anonymous "Master of Holy Scripture" whom the lay "Friend of God" converted. Only in virtue of that identification has he been described as "Dr. John Tauler."
He would have returned to Strasburg about the year 1329, when the city was laid under an interdict by John XXII. The validity of the interdict was disputed among the city clergy, great pressure being put upon them by the municipal authorities not to observe it. Even among the regulars (Dominicans and Franciscans) there was a party that contended for its non-observance. The General Chapter of the Dominicans admitted its validity; but, according to Preger, not all the German houses - there were about 100 - accepted the decision. The Strasburg convent, he maintains, did not submit to it until 1339; and the friars were thereupon expelled for three years by the City Council. But before this date Tauler appears to have been sent to Basle, where, though the city was imperialist, the clergy were not called upon by the civil authorities to defy the interdict, and where, moreover, the Pope relaxed its observance from time to time. Here Tauler made a considerable stay, and presumably delivered some, at least, of those sermons which were included in the Basle edition of 1521.
Here, too, he met Henry of Nordingen, a secular priest who had come to Basle from Constance for the same reason that Tauler had come there from Strasburg. He was a man of much piety and influence, and he numbered many regulars among his spiritual children, one of them being Margaret Ebner, a Dominican nun and an ecstatica, with whom Tauler had later some correspondence, now lost. He returned to Strasburg not much later than 1346; and it was in the years following that his sermons there attracted general attention and admiration. In 1357 he again visited Cologne, and addressed a series of discourses to the nuns at St Gertrude's in that city. Some of these were presumably the originals of the sermons added to the Cologne edition of 1543. Four years later he died in Strasburg (the date on his tomb is June 16, 1361), and was buried in the convent of his order. He had died, however, outside the convent, in the guest-house of an adjoining nunnery, over which his sister presided. A manuscript at Colmar, giving an account of Tauler by one who had known him personally, describes him as "a gifted and holy Friend of God"; but adds that he was detained six years in purgatory for sundry faults, one of these being that on his death-bed he allowed himself to receive too much attention from his sister, "in whose guest-house he died." Other faults ascribed to him are that he was irritable, that he was wanting in submission to his superiors, and that he extolled too highly the "Friends of God," while towards others he was harsh. According to legend, the lay "Friend of God," to whom he had owed his conversion, was with him again at his death-bed, and received from "the Master" the notes of his conversion, to be published after his death, describing him as "the Master," without any other name.
I have failed to obtain any portrait of Tauler, and I am doubtful whether any effigies of him exists. But I have heard of a conventional likeness, in which he is represented in the Dominican habit, holding in his left hand the Holy Bible, stamped with the Agnus Dei, while he points to it with his right. On his breast are the letters IHS and beneath them a T, an allusion perhaps to his name or to his preaching of the Cross.
III; Notes on Tauler's Teaching
Tauler is described as "one of the foremost among the medieval German mystics and preachers, uniting the intellectual depth of Eckhart with the interior spirituality of Suso and the fervour of Berthold of Ratisbon." The first-named was mystical; the last-named was practical; Suso was both; but he was rather a director than a preacher. Tauler also was both, and, like Berthold, he preached for his times. Herder criticizes him, saying that to have read two of his sermons is to have read them all; but this is hardly a verdict to be accepted; for his method varies largely. Sometimes he expounds a text like a homilist; sometimes his text is barely referred to, and becomes a mere peg on which to hang a discourse on a subject of which he was full. No doubt there are readers to whom his allegorical interpretation of Scripture will be distasteful. Kingsley admits that it is "fantastic and arbitrary"; and the method is, of course, one that can easily be abused, especially when the interpretation of numbers is in question. But it has its justification, both in the fact that it is in accordance with Christian tradition - it is found in St Paul, in the early Fathers, and in the offices of the Church, whether those for the choir or those for the altar, and traces of it are left in the Anglican Prayer Book - and also in the experience of sympathetic souls, who find light and consolation in its use. But Tauler's mysticism by no means exhausted itself in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. To him, as to Keble and to Kingsley, the book of Nature was full of parables of things spiritual; and, beyond that again, he clearly enjoyed (for he was no hypocrite) an intuition of things divine, wherein he found more light and certitude than in mere submission to the dogmatic magisterium of the Church.
Further, as to his manner, he is eager and earnest in his presentation of his subject; he uses homely illustrations from daily life, yet without loss of dignity, and when he disparages, as he often does, "outward works," he is saying nothing against the performance of the duties, even the humblest, of ordinary life; he is merely protesting against reliance on ecclesiastical routine, such as fasting, self-discipline, long prayers, and such-like; and this protest is of course quite compatible with Catholic orthodoxy; nor is it unnecessary for these times any more than for his own. But the manner of his sermons, as they have come down to us, is
sometimes hard and even menacing; and readers may not always find it easy to reconcile his frequent use of the words "dear children" with such an apparent lack of tenderness and sympathy. But, likely enough, this defect of manner was less noticeable in the discourses as delivered, than it is in the reports as now read.
Readers will also find it necessary to bear in mind that the mystical standpoint in religion does not by itself free a man from contemporary views and prepossessions. The mystic is of his own age and race; and it is amply evident that the articles of Tauler's creed were just those of any other Catholic believer of his time. There is throughout a spiritual element in his teaching; but it does not exclude the use of what we should now account popular and conventional language about the fall of man, the pains of hell, and so forth. True, he says in one place, what indeed any Catholic preacher may say, that the chief pain of hell is the consciousness of being excluded from the Presence of God; but he does not go on to suggest, as a spiritually-minded teacher might now, that all other language about the pains of hell, "the worm that dies not and the fire that is not quenched," is merely figurative of that one pain, and that such language was and is necessary to bring home men, - to all men in different degrees, - the exceeding greatness of that pain or penalty, as it will hereafter be realised. He is liberal indeed in extending to the spiritually-minded heathen a sufficient knowledge of things divine. He holds that in the "inner ground" Plato and Proclus apprehended the Holy Trinity; he things that in Plato can be found the whole meaning of the opening verses of St John's Gospel, though in veiled words. He teaches that a king, remaining such, may yet rise to the height of "interior poverty," if there is nothing that he is not ready cheerfully to resign to God's Fatherly love. He extols the "evangelical counsels"; but teaches also that the highest perfection is attainable by a married cobbler working to maintain his family. His doctrine of Purgatory does not differ from that usually held by Catholics; but he regards it more as a place for the purging away of self-will than for the expiation of sin. In his sermon for the second Sunday in Lent there is a passage disparaging the invocation of Saints. A good soul, he says, once prayed to the Saints; but they were so lost in God that they did not heed her. Then she took herself humbly to God direct, and straightway she was lifted far above all mediators into
the loving abyss of the Godhead. But perhaps he comes nearest to the Protestant position in his language about the "Friends of God." They are, he teaches, the true pillars of the Church, and without them the world could not stand. In his sermon for Laetare Sunday he bids his hearers "beg the dear Friends of God to help them (in the way of perfection), and to attach themselves simply and solely to God and to his chosen Friends." But, in his teaching, the "Friends of God" do not form, as they would have formed for the later Puritans, "the Church invisible"; they constitute rather a second visible Church, to which the hierarchical Church is in some respects inferior. Some thirty years after Tauler's death the Inquisition at Cologne condemned as heretical certain propositions of Martin of Mayence; one of which was that these "Friends of God" (who were laymen) understood the Gospel better than some of the Apostles, even better than St Paul; and another was that submission to their teaching was necessary to perfection. But Tauler never went that far.
It may be added that, from the modern Christian social point of view, Tauler's limitations are obvious. True, that in his sermon for Septuagesima he exhorts his hearers to use "natural gifts" for God. But his conception of "nature" is a very narrow one. Rightly it should include, besides those natural gifts which constitute personal character, such social virtues as patriotism, love for the community and for the family, a desire to master the earth and to make it the seat of a well-ordered Christian society, a realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. But Tauler manifests no conception of anything of this. For the social elevation of mankind, here and now, he has nothing whatever to say.
Nevertheless, whatever were our author's limitations, Preger's judgment on the value of Tauler's sermons is one to command general assent: - "Their strength lies in the fact that Tauler knew how to put into them his whole heart, the fulness of his moral being. So utterly and completely is he penetrated by love of God and of Christ, so happily is the sublime and unworldly zeal of the orator blended with gentleness and freedom, that he masters the will unawares, and lays the heart open to the demands he makes upon it ...His sermons will never cease to hold their place among the most perfect examples of pure German speech, of fervid German faith, and of German spirituality in all its depths.
IV; Tauler and Mysticism
It may be convenient to some of those into whose hands this little volume will come, if a brief account is here given of that "Mysticism" to which repeated reference has been made, and to which reference must be made, when the significance of Tauler's teaching is under consideration. Although the subject is now much better understood than it was in 1856, when Robert Vaughan published his "Hours with the Mystics," a notable book, oddly put together, interesting in its facts, but irritating in its manner, there is still need to point out what mystics are not, more perhaps than what they are. Mystics are not dreamers; they are not fanatics; they are not fools; they are not a sect; and mysticism is not a religion. As a rule, mystics are so termed by others; they do not use the term of themselves. But thousands and millions of Christian believers have been and are mystics, without themselves knowing the word. In fact, as Dr. Bigg says, "mysticism is an element in all religion that is not mere formalism"; and it is confined to no one form of Christianity. A Carthusian hermit, prostrate on the floor of his cell in meditation, may or may not be a mystic; but so may also be a grocer's assistant who occasionally attends a Methodist chapel. When Cardinal Newman taught that in the act of faith the conclusion is more certain than the premises, he (perhaps inadvertently) proclaimed himself a mystic; and so, I think, did Ritschl, in spite of himself, when he affirmed the certitude of the "value-judgement" by which a man lays hold on the historic Christ; for mysticism is such a way of apprehending spiritual truth; it is a way that is neither purely intellectual, nor purely emotional; but one that employs, in one act, all the powers of a man's soul. The mystical attitude towards truth is thus in harmony with Matthew Arnold's lines: -
"Affections, Instincts, Principles and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control - So men, unravelling God's harmonious whole, Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours. Vain labour! Deep and broad, where none may see, Spring the foundations of that shadowy throne, Where man's One Nature, queen-like, sits alone, Centred in a majestic unity."
It is true that mysticism has to do with mystery; and that is why the term is popularly held in disrepute. But the mysteries with which mysticism chiefly has to do are neither numerous nor fantastic: they are God, and the Soul, and Revelation; the last being the making known of the One to the other: and, beyond this, Christian mysticism views the Eternal as approached through Jesus Christ, the Door; a few texts from St Paul and St John sufficing to state the whole case. Individual mystical writers have, no doubt, gone far beyond this, and have said extravagant things; but the essence of the whole lies herein; and "the Church can never get rid of the mystic spirit; nor should she attempt to do so, for it is, in fact, her life. It is another name for conscience, for freedom, for the rights of the individual soul, for the grace and privilege of direct access to the Redeemer, for the presence of the Divine Spirit in the heart."
And further, most people are now familiar with the distinction between the dreamy, unpractical mysticism of the East and the vigorous variety of the same mode of thought in the West. In both cases it produces the same consciousness of certitude and of interior peace; but in the one case that tends to mere contemplation and self-introspection, while in the other it inspires a Tauler of a Cromwell or a Coleridge; and from the latter's mysticism, movements that are vigorous to-day have derived their spiritual energy, though but few of those whom the movements affect may be aware of the fact. It is also necessary to distinguish between mysticism as a way of holding spiritual truth, and mysticism as an interpretation, sometimes fantastic, of the world and of man; and again between this interpretation and the mystical interpretation of Scripture, already referred to, which is apt, indeed, to allegorise wantonly, though its fancies are almost always of service in securing a broader and more edifying interpretation for texts which, if regarded as mere history or legon, would lack religious significance. The evolution of these other aspects of the subject from that first mysticism, which is the apprehension of spiritual things by the soul, a few moments reflection will make clear. The mystic, who sees God in all things and all things in God, recognises more in nature than mere natural phenomena, and more in the Word of God than its first literal significance. To him every thing, every event, every person, is a vision from the Unseen, a voice from the Inaudible. He lives in a world of parables, full of spiritual significance;
and, while for him there is a Real Presence everywhere, he finds it also most truly and effectively where it is most clearly discerned by faith. Nothing that might be accounted magical is required to produce it, for it is there and everywhere already. So too, in his interpretation of the Book, which contains, with whatever admixture, the fullest record of what has been revealed to man as necessary for the salvation of his soul, he sees more than the mere student of the letter. In God's dealings with man from first to last he perceives a harmony that implies a foreshadowing of the last in the first, of the whole in the part; and in this way he can find an interpretation of spiritual value even in the thoughts of good men, who have pictured to themselves, inaccurately, it may be, as to matters of fact, God's earlier work in the creation of the world and of man. And, thus broadly understood, mysticism is now "in the air," and is becoming recognised as a force that makes for unity among Christians, who differ somewhat as to dogma, and more as to their methods of external expression. Happily however, its interior and reserved character will always hinder mysticism from being degraded, as external religion can be and is, to the position of a mere badge or cry of an ecclesiastical party.
Not to know anything about mysticism is not to know anything about a large part of human nature; for mysticism is the philosophy of experience; the mystics are the only thorough-going empiricists in the whole history of philosophy; and the realm of experience is what is decisive of truth. A complete history of mysticism would cover a very large field in the history of the world; and that not only of the world of thought; for, in the West at any rate, the mystics have repeatedly built the platform on which great dramas have been played; and in this sense (but in this sense only) Tauler and the "Friends of God" were "precursors of the Reformation," much as the Puritans were the precursors of the modern Revolution. It may be quite possible to show that Tauler was an orthodox Catholic friar, and that his obedience to the Church was throughout irreproachable; but, none the less, his mystical doctrine of the inner and outer, of the letter and the spirit, tended irresistibly towards the overthrow of Catholicism, so far as in his day is consisted in mere formalism and obedience to external rule. The same doctrine in the teaching of St Paul made short work of the Jewish Law; and again in our own day (for there are symptoms of its revival) it will either destroy or
will newly inspire modern Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, which, without the mystic spirit, must inevitably degenerate into mere Byzantinism, the religion of credulity and of ceremonial routine.
The earliest home of mysticism was in the East; but before the Christian era it had passed over into Europe, or had an independent origin there. But its independent origin in the West, in the mystical teaching of Jesus Christ, as we recognize it in the language used by St Paul and St John, must surely be acknowledged as beyond question. It is a mode of thought or of feeling, from its very nature insusceptible of exact definition, in which reliance is placed on spiritual intuition or illumination, believed to transcend the ordinary powers of the human understanding. In this sense Plato (whom Eckhart quaintly describes as "the great Parson" - der grosse Pfaffe), was a mystic. It is the endeavour of the human soul (in its own judgment successful) to grasp the Divine Essence, or the ultimate Reality of things, and to enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with the Highest. Thus, mystical theology is that knowledge of God and of things divine, which is derived, not from observation or from argument, but from conscious spiritual experience; and, being thus based, it possesses, for the individual who holds it, an unbreakable certainty.
From Plato and from Aristotle's account of God's inner life, the Greek mysticism, as a stream distinct from the mysticism of the New Testament (i.e. of St Paul, and of the writings attributed to St John), passed into Plotinus, and so, through Philo and the neo-Platonists, it became an element in Christian theology; and the writer known as "pseudoDionysius" was its chief prophet in the early Church. It would take long to trace, so far as it can be traced, the filiation of the doctrine from the age of the neo-Platonists to the fourteenth century; and it must suffice to say that there existed in Tauler's day at least four Latin versions of the works of Dionysius, that of Scotus Erigena being the one with which he was most likely to be familiar. Dionysius was also commented on by the greatest scholastics, incidentally even by St Thomas Aquinas, who sought to deal justly with the mystics without endangering orthodoxy. Eckhart, whose disciple Tauler in some sense way, had been trained in the school of St Thomas; but he gradually emancipated himself from the scholastic yoke; and he is commonly reckoned the spiritual ancestor of Kant and
Hegel. Indeed, in other ways and by a more direct descent, mysticism at this day largely affects multitudes to whom its very name is unknown. The favourite devotional books of all the churches, and many of our most popular hymns, are essentially mystical. It has been defined above as philosophical empiricism; but it is more than that, and much more than mere sentimentality. "It is the conception of men whose piety has been won after long conflict, whose thoughts have been dissected by a very keen inner scepticism, whose single-minded devotion to an abstraction has resulted from a vast experience of painful complications of life...It has been the ferment of the faiths, the forerunner of spiritual liberty, the inaccessible refuge of the nobler heretics, the inspirer, through poetry, of countless youth who know no metaphysics, the teacher, through the devotional books, of the despairing, the comforter of those who are weary of finitude; it has determined directly or indirectly, more than half of the technical theology of the Church."
With the above eloquent passage, written only the other day, may be compared Kingsley's lament, written in 1856, that mysticism was a form of thought and feeling then all but extinct in England. The Anglican divines, he said, looked on it with utter disfavour; they used the word always as a term of reproach; and they interpreted the mystical expressions in the Prayer-book (chiefly to be found in the collects) in accordance with the philosophy of Locke, being ignorant that these collects were really the work of Platonist mystics. But meanwhile, he pointed out, it was the mysticism of Coleridge, "the fakir of Highgate," that had originated both the Oxford Movement and Emersonian freethought; while Carlyle, "the only contemporary mystic of any real genius," was exercising more practical influence, and was infusing more vigorous life into the minds of thousands of men and women, than all the other teachers of England put together. If he had also mentioned Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning and Ruskin, he would have made still clearer how immense has been the power of our latter-day mysticism; while the names of Neale and of Keble, of Faber and of Newman, can speak for the same potent influence among those who were ecclesiastics by profession.
This perhaps may suffice, if any need there was to secure or those who read Tauler's sermons now for the first time, sympathy with him instead
of suspicion on account of his reputation as a mystic. There is no need to follow him when he becomes subtle or extravagant; but of his generally broad and spiritual teaching no one can doubt the wholesome influence. Ritschl, in his zeal for his new rational Lutheranism, is bitter against the mystics; yet even he admits that Tauler did good service in inculcating interior as compared with mere ceremonial religion, and in lessening the great medieval distinction between clergy and laity. There was in Tauler's day a great need for a revival of the religion of the heart - when is there not such a need? - but it was also necessary that the established methods of religion should be respected and remain intact; for there existed no other social bond equally fitted to hold men together. And this was the secret of Tauler's influence. He was able to fill the old bottles with new wine from an ancient vineyard without bursting them. Recent historical criticism may have destroyed some of the romance with which his name was associated. But if, as it now appears, he was not a "Reformer before the Reformation," and was not the subject of a singular conversion in the midst of his successful career as preacher, he still remains, and will always remain, a striking and venerable figure in the medieval Church, a reformer at any rate of practical abuses, and a prophet of righteousness in days that were corrupt as well as stormy.
V. The Versions of Tauler's Sermons
The editors and translators of Tauler have also been perforce to some extent his interpreters.
"Children, you shall not seek after great science. Simply enter into your own inward principle, and learn to know what you yourselves are, spiritually and naturally, and do not dive into the secret things of God, asking questions about the efflux and reflux of the Aught into the Naught, or the essence of the soul's spark; for Christ has said: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in His own power." Therefore, let us maintain a true, entire, simple faith in one God in a Trinity of Persons, and yet not as manifold but as one and simple."
THE INNER WAY
SERMON I; ON THE FEAST OF ST ANDREW THE APOSTLE
Of Christ as our Master, and of the good things He will teach us in a few words, such as will lead us on to the highest Perfection. Then, of where His Dwelling is, how and where we may find Him, Who calls and invites us all to come and see; as is clearly shown in what follows.
Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where are you staying? He says to them, Come and see.
We read in St John's Gospel that St John the Baptist was standing, and two of his disciples, (one of them being Andrew, Simon Peter's brother), and, when he saw Jesus pass by, he said: "Behold the Lamb of God." The two disciples heard that, and saw them following, and said to them: "What are you looking for?" They said to Him, "Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where are you staying?" He says to them; "Come and see."
These words teach us three things, first, the overflowing Wisdom of Christ in the words of the Master, secondly, the Dwelling-place of His inscrutable Being, the stronghold of all beings, for they said: "Where are you staying?" and thirdly, the Comfort given to us by the invitation of God to seek Him in spirit, in the resting-place of His Godhead, and to learn at the Source of wisdom, that is, in the school of the Holy Trinity. He thus speaks of it: "Come, O soul, abide with Me and in Me; and look that you may learn; I will open to you the depths of My Divine Heart, that you may learn and see all that is for your eternal good."
Now listen first to the Master: O Master, teach these daughters for me, that not one of them may remain amongst the five foolish virgins. Then He answered and said: Daughter, learn of Me that you may be meek and lowly of heart, as He also said to St Andrew and the other disciples. Now, if you think again, this teaching is too hard for me; for sloth, care, anger, cowardice and such-like resist me and afflict my heart, so that I lose all meekness of spirit. Christ our Master replied: "How much will it help you,
O man, if in your service you gain the whole world and lose your own soul?" For from thence will many sorrows come upon you, agitation of mind, anguish and bitterness of heart, vexation in all good works, indolence of mind, whereby the soul loses all meekness of temper. Thus it comes to pass that the overflowing Spirit of Christ cannot pour joy or consolation into the soul; for His tenderness cannot suffer the bitterness of your soul; for He is sweeter than honey. Therefore he who will have nothing to do with the deceitful comfort of man must receive the sweetness of this Spirit. And therefore, dear child, begin manfully, follow this Master, and cast yourself down before Him in the depths of humility, and say in your heart: "Lord, I am the least of all the creatures that you have made," and compose yourself in meekness of spirit; and then shall you know that God is a short word which has a long meaning. Exercise yourself diligently therein, grow not weary; and then shall you perceive what before was hidden from you.
At another time the soul will be attracted by the Dwelling-place of the Divine Nature of our Master. Now, know that this question is one sought out by all creatures; and therefore they long for the same nature themselves, that they may find out the Nature of God; for all natural works are but a seeking after and a questioning after the Dwelling-place of God. If it were not so, the heavens and the elements could no longer exist. Dear child, what are you asking for outside yourself, and why do you seek God in the strange lands of mortal things? you can not truly find Him; they all deny Him, and point you away from themselves. "We are not God," they say. But Augustine writes: "Exalt yourself above us to the things eternal: for God is there."
Now, mark that God may be found in many ways in which the soul receives instruction. First, the soul finds God her Creator on the heights of penance or penitence. Therefore the soul must, above all things, exert all her strength to subdue her own free will, ready, for God's sake, to learn to give up all things both great and small, to do hard penance, and to punish herself for following the will she had forsaken. The more the soul exercises herself in these works, the more will she find God in her, and herself in God. This is shown in the Book of Love; for the Wellbeloved says: "I will go up to the mountain of myrrh, and will speak to my
love." The mountain of bitter myrrh is the height of the exalted spirit, which transforms into bitterness the desire for all personal gratification and deceitful delights in all things that are not according to God's Will. Thus God speaks in spirit to the soul: "you are all fair my love, pure and undefiled, there is no spot in you." But he who lives according to his own will, for his own pleasure, cannot thus find God, but will find Him as his adversary in all his works. Thus man will spoil all that he begins; for the works of the flesh will help but little, if the will and the affections of the heart are not first subdued. A Psalm, said by one who has subdued his will, is worth many Psalms: that is, the least work done by such a man is more pleasing to God than the greatest work done by a man who follows his own way.
At another time man finds God in the wilderness, in the burning bush, as Moses found Him. The bush in the wilderness signifies such a temper or spirit that, withdrawn and estranged from all creatures, puts forth leaves or blossoms on the heights of the Eternal Godhead. As the Divine Being comprises within Himself three Persons, so also this spirit has laid hold of God in His threefold powers, as the bush laid hold of the flames in its blossoming branches; and this is of grace. This putting forth of leaves causes the soul to grow steadily in light, in godlike virtues, day by day without ceasing, until she, with the vision of angels, beholds God in Zion. Now, mark, in the measure that you have found God, in that measure also will you find in yourself the divine training and virtues - more to-day than yesterday. But he who will thus find God here, must cast off all carnal desires, and, with Moses, he must come under the dominion of self-restraint and the light of reason; for flesh and blood cannot posses the Kingdom of God. I believe, dear children, that nearly all your daily shortcomings proceed from there; that you follow by word or deed the sudden impulses that thrust themselves into the heart from without, before the light of self-restraint can shine therein.
Thirdly, God may be found on the mountain, in the cloud; for the union (Testament) of Divine Light and of the commandment was written on the stone by the finger of God. The mountain is like a high-minded, largehearted man, who has no pleasure in any of his works, neither can he find any rest in them, unless, like St Paul, he is confirmed in all his works
by an express sign of the Will of God; so that the will of the soul does not even carry on human actions according to his own will, but after the manner appointed by the Divine Will, divinely. Thus the soul by her works sanctifies the body, so that when the body does the soul does also; and again, on the other hand, the works of the Divine Will and the works of the soul are at one; so that the soul can say: I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; I work, yet not I, but the power of Divine Being works in me. This takes place in the cloud, in the eternal splendour of the Divine Light, for the light of all creatures is as night compared with the Divine Light.
Then God may be found in the cave with the prophet Elias. We read that the prophet came into the wilderness, and that in his soul he longed that he might die, for he had become weary in spirit with the turmoil of this world. While he slept, an angel came, and placed at his head a cake baked on the coals and a pitcher of water, and bade him arise and eat, because he had still a long way before him that he must go. And he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights, until he came to the place where he found God.
Then a strong wind came rushing by, which rent the rocks and the stones; but God was not in the wind; for God shows the spirit which is moved by stormy winds to be like those which Daniel saw contending in the sea of this world; that is in a worldly heart, in inordinate fear, hope, joy and scorn; for all these things blind the light of the spirit with which a man ought to seek after God. The stormy wind also signifies to us the restless heart of a man, who in all things, both in his words and works, behaves so unkindly and impatiently towards his fellow Christians, that it might grind the stones to powder; that is, that large-minded men are often robbed of their soul's peace thereby. Dear children, with God's help, beware of such violence. Keep watch over yourselves; subdue your unmortified nature, that it may not break out as violently as that of the wild, untamed beasts. It is indeed a dreadful thing to see such a man, endowed with reason, to whom God of His goodness has given so much light, and in whose nature He has implanted that kind of courage which enables him even to tame the wild beasts, if he chooses to exert his will, and follow the promptings of his own integrity. Alas! sometimes we are even wilder than the bears and lions, and a disgrace in the sight of God
our Creator; living contrary to the nature He gave us, as though the light of His countenance had never shone upon us. I tell you in truth that we shall have to give an account to God for all that we ruin by such storms. It may be that we shall ruin ourselves (as often happens with the wrathful) or our neighbour, who is not only disturbed thereby, but also angered, and hindered in much that is good - and of this we are guilty. Then, when we say it grieves us, but it is our nature, and we are obliged to do it, we are excusing ourselves falsely, and we never learn to die to ourselves. Truly, if we turned to God in earnest fervent prayer and humble submission, these infirmities of our nature would not overpower us, nor, as we say, oblige or force us to commit such faults.
Then came a fire, and God was not in the fire. Fire is a thing which can never say "Enough;" and it represents the heart of a man who is never satisfied, either with his goods or with the gifts of God; but is always burning to increase without measure those things which are neither divine nor pure; desiring to receive comfort or other temporal things, and to find love and pleasure in them. All this is a sign that the Spirit of God is not there. I mean also all those people who make light of and belittle all the gifts of God, as though God had never done them any good, and who say: "Why did God make me? since I am so empty and barren of all that is good;" and who do not perceive that God has preserved them from many a fall, and protected them from many sins into which they would have fallen, if He had not so carefully watched over them, and called them away from the world to a spiritual state, in which they might have been pillars of all Christendom, if only they had lived in accordance with that state.
I tell you, dear child, that such unthankfulness might well have dried up the springs of love, of Divine Grace. Therefore, I beseech you, by the Eternal Love of God, that you be not quickly moved by the desire for these things, as I have taught you all, with heartfelt earnestness, and as God knows; and if any other spirit teach you otherwise, it is at the peril of your salvation in the sight of God; as St Paul says to the Galatians: "If any man preach to you a gospel beside the one we preached to you, even though it were an Angel from heaven, let him be anathema."
There came a still small voice, like the sweet breezes of May; and in that voice came God; for so says the Scripture. This signifies to us one who walks with God, in the eternal words of God, and whose thoughts and words are holy according to the Word of God, and whose longing spirit communes with God. Then it is that God comes; for in such spiritual sunbeams a steady blessed light is borne in upon the soul from God. They are not worthy of this blessedness, who, by strange forms of man's words (or even of an Angel, As St Paul says) are drawn away from the good desires they had received from God. This it is that the soul longs after in the Book of Songs, when she says to God that the north wind should depart and go away; meaning thereby all that enters into the spirit from the flesh, from whence all evil comes. So says also the prophet Jeremiah; for he saw that in the seething-pot all the budding spiritual gifts of God boiled and withered away when it was turned towards the north wind. Then his spirit was troubled within him, and he could no longer hold fast to the inner savour of the north wind. Therefore, when the soul longs for God, she says: Come, O south wind, (for it is sweet) blow through my garden, and let its aromatic spices flow; that is, that my works may have a godly savour.
Fourthly, God is found above the Angels; for the soul must be exalted above all Angels (though by nature below the Angels) if she would find God. Therefore she finds Him in the Father; for thus the soul must bring all her works, free from all self-seeking, as the Eternal Word uplifts Himself eternally to God, if she would find Him, as he was found by the soaring Seer of God, John the Evangelist, when he said: "In the beginning was the Word." Then Andrew, and the loving souls that were with him, ask with earnest longing: "Master, where are You staying?" John answers: "In the Beginning was the Word;" for in words we shall not find God, if we do not lift up our souls in the Beginning. Therefore we must pierce through all things that are beneath God and are not God, and the Beginning (from which we have our being) seek earnestly again; for in that alone is our dwelling and the future resting place of our eternal bliss. This must be done by turning earnestly to the vision of the Divine Being and union with Him. As He said to those two disciples: "Come and see;" as though He had said: Come, that is turn away from the things by which you are inordinately troubled and absorbed, that hinder your eternal
peace; for you must be emptied of all works, understanding and carnal desires. And see that you come to the knowledge that God the Lord is empty and bare of all; so that your spirits may be guided to that pure and holy Being. For of necessity the soul must be empty and bare of all, that would enter into the secret Presence. Therefore man must divest himself of all those things of which he is conscious. Dionysius said to Timothy: "O dear friend, we must no longer listen with our outward ears to the sweet and loving words of our dear master, Paul; but we must go to God, emptied of all things." This we can only do when our eyes are blinded and our inmost desires are raised on high, in order that we may learn to know His hidden Unity. May God help us all to this. Amen.
SERMON II; ON ST BARBARA'S DAY, OR THAT OF ANY OTHER HOLY VIRGIN
Of some ways by which man may with certainty attain to Union with God, and may also have unceasing Communion with Him. How he may have peace with the world, the evil enemy and his own flesh.
"My beloved speaks to me: arise, make haste, my love."
Thus spoke the Bride in the Book of Love. Now, he who wishes to be the friend, and to know whether he be the spouse of our Lord, must take note of the following marks, and see whether he possesses them. If he possesses them, then he is, undoubtedly, a chosen spouse.
The first is that he must have peace with our Lord, so that no created being can disturb his inner peace. Thus says the prophet: "He will give you true peace in this place." The spouse of our Lord must so comport herself, that she readily renounces all things in humble confidence, retaining her divine peace unimpaired within, and renouncing all things in Him and by Him. Now would you ask, with whom you shall have peace? With the world, the enemy, and your own flesh. But how? With the world, by not heeding what the world may do to you, either taking you or leaving you; to this you may attain with patience.
Secondly, that you may be at peace with the enemy; but man can
scarcely ever attain to this. The enemy is constantly striving with him, and is always interfering in all man's works and actions in order to hinder him. There is nothing by which man can so completely quench the fiery darts of the enemy as by fervent and devout prayer; for it burns and chases him away, and forces him to flee with all his lusts. Therefore, when man is conscious of the fiery arrows which are shot at him, and which would deprive him of his spiritual peace, let him at once betake himself to secret prayer with all his might, and take no heed of hindrances; and thus he will be rid of all hindrances, while nothing more grievous can happen to the enemy. Thus we read of St Bartholomew, that he prayed, and then the devil cried our: "Oh, you burn me with your prayers, and you have bound me with fiery bands."
Thirdly, you must have peace with yourself. But how? you must in all things subject your body to your spirit, that in all things you may have dominion over it, that it may not hinder the in any work that God requires of you. Thus did the holy saints: for they had dominion over their own bodies, and trained them so well, that what the spirit desired, the body sprang forward to do, as though it would say: "Here I am before you." We read that it was so with the humble Francis. There are four things that a man must do, in order to acquire this dominion over his own body. First, you must deprive your body of all that pleases it, whether eating, drinking, sleeping or waking, and of all comfort. When you see that it is ready to rebel, bridle it with a discipling that is still more severe. Secondly, you must renounce all thirst for and all the consolation of the world, and all worldly things and cares. Let the dead bury their dead; follow you God. If your friend dies; or joy, grief, honour or riches, or whatever it may be, is your portion or comes to you, bear all patiently in God. A saint once said: "With the one you rejoice with, and with the one you sorrow with, you also will be judged." St Paul says: "Reckon yourselves to be dead to the world." The dead man cares not whether he be praised or blamed, whether goods are given him or withheld. A dead or a dying man cares nothing for gold or jewels, for honour, friends, joy or consolation. you must do as one of the old Fathers did, who dwelt in a wood. His own brother came to him and said: "Dear brother, I am in great distress; a cart of mine, laden with goods, has fallen into the water, help me to drag it out;" and he cried and wept and
besought him urgently. The old Father replied: "Go, and ask that brother, who still dwells in the world, for help. Why do you come to me?" Then the man, who was a merchant, said: "That brother has been dead a whole year." Then said the old man. "So have I been dead for twenty years;" and thus he dismissed him, and troubled himself no more.
Thirdly, your mind must be always fixed on God. you must be always in the Presence of God. Truly, if you desire to have the Creator of all creatures, you must renounce all creatures; for it cannot be otherwise, but only as your soul is emptied and bared; the less of the creature, the more of God: this is but a bargain. St Augustine says: "That man is far too covetous who is not satisfied with God; for what can you desire that you can not find in Him? Remember that whatever such a heart can desire is to be found a thousandfold in Him. Do you want love or faithfulness, or truth, or consolation, or His constant Presence? - all, all can be found without measure in Him. Do you want beauty? He is of all the most beautiful; do you want riches? He is of all the richest; do you want power? He is of all the most powerful. Whatever your heart can desire, may be found a thousandfold in Him; for in God alone can you find the best blessings." Therefore drive out all creatures with all their consolations. Say: "Get away: you are not the One Whom I seek; Whom I desire, Whom I love." Whether it be honour, or riches, or joy, or friendship, say: "Get away, flee from me, let me alone, let me be, I heed you not."
Why is it that God is so strange to you, and that His loving Presence is so often lost or withheld? There is but one reason; that your mind is not emptied and bared, and that you trouble yourself about the creature, and are corrupted thereby. St Bernard says contemplation is nothing else than a cleaving to God, a forgetfulness of all earthly things. St Augustine says: "He can contemplate who is free from all earthly thoughts, and thinks of the things that are of God." and he also says: "O good Jesus, my soul longs unspeakably for Your love. I beseech You that I may be enraptured with the vision, the Cross, and the most holy sweetness of Your Humanity. May I be able to withstand the vanity and the temptations of the world, and long to be caught up into heaven, to fathom the mystery of the Sacraments of God. May I so increase in spiritual
things that I may be caught up, as it were, to gaze on Your Divine and Holy Trinity, so that in all my works I may acknowledge Your Divine Will, and be united with You. And, though I sometimes let down to the first or second stage, may I have no difficulty in rising up again; so that, when I see or hear of earthly things, I may not heed them, but die to them and live alone to You. There is one thing that you must know; if only you were freed from the likeness of the creature, you might have God unceasingly; for He could not refuse you, either in heaven or in earth. He must come to you. Had He sworn, He must change His word, and come to you, and completely fill your soul, if He found it empty; for, do what you wilt, as long as the creature reigns in you, you must do without God and remain in vanity. If you withhold the least part of yourself from Him, assuredly He will take much from you of what He is, an immense portion.
There was once a fair and beautiful woman, who bore a child, that was as black as a Moor. Master Albertus was told of this great trouble. He found a picture of a Moor that the woman had seen and he said to her: "Woman, I have found the father of your child." And he compared the matter to a hen that was set in sight of a sparrow hawk, and all her young were fashioned after the likeness of sparrow hawks. Thus all who are born after the Divine Likeness are divine; and all that are born after the flesh are carnal.
Fourthly, you must subdue your natural senses, and at all times hold the mastery over them; you must see, and yet not see, and never raise your eyes, nor listen with your ears, nor open your mouth, without good cause. Your hands, your feet and all your members must never be allowed their own way. you must guard them carefully and keep them securely, that nothing may suggest itself to them, or be heard or seen by them that is not divine. For, St Augustine says: "We must die and yet not die, we must keep under our nature and our senses by force." Then God will rule over us, and without doubt we shall also rule over ourselves. Amen.
SERMON III; On the Conception of Our Lady, also on Her Birth
How men, when they are advancing, may learn to know their infirmities
and secret evil inclinations; how they may die to them and be freed from them; whether it be from the delights of things pertaining to the senses or the mind, or to the powers of the soul, or whatever else it may be. How the likeness of past habits must be driven out by the Likeness of the Life of Jesus Christ, so that men may come to understand with all the saints, the Height, the Depth, the Breadth and the Length of God.
"Come over to me, all you that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey and the honeycomb."
Dear children, in the last sermon on these words, which were spoken (of the Virgin Mary) by the Eternal Wisdom, I told you that these words referred to our Lady, whose dignity and honour can in nowise be expressed by man in words, for they surpass all knowledge in value. I described the works and ways which were necessary to the man who, rising up, desired to enter into the way of truth; then, what was necessary to him during his progress; and then, how the perfect man might arrive at the goal, and what his end would be.
I told you how man must first put away all crying sins, such as pride, impurity, covetousness, anger, and all the evil growths of the world, with all foolish desires; and, above all, everything that pertains to the flesh, whether of things animate or inanimate. In short, the man who does not turn bravely to God with all his heart and with all his mind, who does not love God from the bottom of his heart, and intend above all things to serve Him, and to be found at his death in Him, will never come to God; even though, as St Paul says, he were to do so as many good works as all men now living, and were so wise that he spoke with the tongue of Angels, and allowed his body to be burned, and gave all his goods to feed the poor. Now, how have they turned to God with all their love and with all their minds, who give their hearts, of their own free will, to created beings, although they know that they are thus occupying the places where God should dwell, and of which they are consciously depriving Him? God cares not for works, when He is deprived of the heart and of love. Of what use is the chaff to Him, if another has the wheat?
Now when these grosses sins are cut off in the growing man with a
diligence which is like a sharp steel, and of which I have already spoken, he will be sharpened like a sharp knife, and whetted by the great righteousness of God, which lets no word nor deed, however small they may be, pass by unpunished. He must remember the secret and terrible judgements of God; for no one knows how it will be with him; for no one knows whether he is the subject of God's anger, or of His favour. Now, when this man has begun be cutting off all wicked vices, he must then take heed of what is left in the bottom of his heart, namely the inclination thereto, which is the result of old habits. For these old habits make excuses for themselves, and strive to appear as though they were virtues; and yet they are only counterfeits; when pride, which a man fondly imagines he had overcome, lies hidden in his heart. For instance, care about dress and such-like matters remains, and it is called cleanliness; or pleasure is found in things pertaining to the senses, such as food or drink; and it is called necessity. Then some men are so angry and wrathful, longing to inform against every man and to judge him; and they are so suspicious and impatient; and then they call it justice; while pure laziness is called illness.
Children, if you insist on any of these things, and glory in your own kindness and in your own judgment, and in your own lofty and wise works and ways - when the end comes, the Devil will come and take away those with him who fondly imagine that all is well with them. This will be the case, especially, with those who conceal their pride beneath the appearance of humility, and who, wise in their own conceit, should of right stand under Lucifer's banner; for the higher they stand in their own esteem, the deeper will they fall into the abyss.
Children, look to yourselves. This is not a question of small things. If you were to be kept in a hot room a night and a day, you would think it very hard; I say nothing of burning heat for many a year, or perhaps for all eternity. Therefore commune with your own selves, for the kingdom of God is within you. See with whom you associate, with whom you readily stay; and examine the reasons and the tendency to all evil habits. For if a man gives way to a fault for a year or two, that fault takes such deep root in his heart, that he can scarcely overcome it with all his might. Therefore young men should guard themselves carefully, so that no evil
tendencies may take root in them. They must root out all infirmities at the beginning, when it is far more easy to do so than later. Now there are four things, especially, which man must guard against, four powers which are so injurious and evil that they are like jagged teeth.
The first is the love of visible things; and in this lies the strength of desire. It is scarcely possible to imaging or describe the harm men do to themselves thereby. Men who desire to be good, begin with this or that, with one thing or another, and are so occupied with the seed-sowing, that they do not keep to the full truth. They do not look into their own hearts, which are closed up, like some unknown thing a thousand miles off; there outward and visible things are of more importance to them. Thus they go on avoiding themselves, so that they do not know where they are.
The second power is anger. This is used inordinately; for it should never be used outwardly, except in those things which are displeasing to God. In itself it is a noble power; but in many men it produces very evil growths. They suddenly fall with vehemence on anything whatsoever; and in false righteousness desire to censure it, to judge of all works and ways; and thus they deceive themselves and other men with their violence, their unrestrained and bitter anger, and their loud, harsh, unkind and angry words.
The third evil is to be found in the power of the light of reason, to which many men trust to their own hurt. They trust in their own reason and glory in it, and they compare themselves with the all-wise and living and essential Truth; for he, who says he possesses it, possesses it not. Thus many a man deceives himself and imagines he possesses all things, because he sees them in his own imagination, while they are hundreds of miles away; and thus he misses that noble treasure, deep humility; and accepts the counterfeit before him and also before other men.
The fourth evil is the secret delight which is often taken in talent. This holds sway in many men; they are deceived by its good appearance, and pleasure attracts them more than divine love; they take pleasure for God, and they imagine God to be only pleasure. Thus, if their pleasure were to vanish, so also would their diligence. Look well to yourselves; for many a
thing which seems as though it came from divine love, has so many additions, that the enjoyment, the taste and the circumstances excite us more than we imagine. Sometimes this arises from new emotions, from inclination, or from fear of hell, or from the desire to be blessed; and this is man's natural desire. Know, children, that those who do not seek God from the heart, God will neither be their end nor their reward. All these things of which you have heard must be diligently cut off, as with a sharp knife, which must be whetted on the severe judgements of God, and on His unchangeable righteousness, which lets nothing escape.
Now, when these outward infirmities have been cut off, there still remains beneath the tendency to sin, the likeness of past habits; and this must be driven out by the Likeness of Jesus Christ. As one nail must be driven out by another, so must man imprint this Likeness devoutly and firmly on the ground of his heart, so that all inequalities in him may be done away and extinguished. Now, as God has given great power to minerals and herbs, to drive out disease, by what power do you believe that the Son of God will drive out all the diseases of the soul, but by His holy Sufferings, His Death, and His sacred Likeness. Now, because man can do nothing by himself, he must exercise himself in holy suffering by means of prayer; he must cast himself down secretly at the feet of the heavenly Father, and beseech Him for the sake of His well-beloved Son, and by all His sufferings, to help him; for without Him he cannot attempt or succeed in anything. He must train himself never to allow the sacred Sufferings, nor the Likeness of his Lord to forsake his heart; and he must allow no strange likeness to find a place there. In order to do this, he must lift up his heart and mind to the heights of the glory of the Godhead, on which he must gaze with holy fear and longing desire. When he lays his dark and miserable ignorance before God, he will understand what Job said: "A Spirit went before me." This leading of the Spirit causes a great disturbance in the heart of the man. The clearer, the truer, the plainer this leading is, the stronger, the quicker, the truer and the plainer will be the work, the strength and the conversion of the man; and he will more plainly recognise his place of abode. Then the Lord comes in a quick glance, and lights up the heart of the man, and will be Lord of all his work. When the man becomes conscious of the Lord's Presence, he must let his work alone and worship Him; all his powers must be still, and
there must be calm. Otherwise the works of man would be but a hindrance, and his good works also; for he must do nothing but submit himself to God. But when man is again left to himself, and he is no longer conscious that God is working in him in any way that he can clearly recognize, then he must begin again to work diligently, and to discipline himself in holiness. Thus the man will sometimes work, and sometimes rest, as he is moved of God and entreated; everyone must do as seems best to him, either working or resting, so that he may be drawn to God. But he who cannot rest alone must make use of sacred pictures, and of discipline, so that he may be rooted and grounded in holy love, and may comprehend with all saints the height, the length, the depth and the breath.
To understand all this is impossible; but it is possible to cling to it with love and pure intentions. The mind must lift itself up above all visible things, and above all the lower things of sense, and realise that God, Who can do all things, did not choose to make a creature so noble, that with the help of his natural understanding he could attain to the knowledge of the very essence of the Being of God. For the depth of the divine abyss cannot be fathomed by deep humility. Therefore our Lady, taking no heed of all the great blessings that God had poured out upon her, spoke only of her lowliness, for which all generations should call her blessed, because God had regarded her only.
The breadth of God must be understood as the universal love which He manifests in all places, in all lands, and in all the works and ways that are good. There is nothing so broad or so universal as God, nor so near to the inmost heart of man; he who will seek Him there, shall find Him. Thus every day we find Him in the Blessed Sacrament, in all the Friends of God, and in all creatures. This breadth must be sought with an earnest, fervent mind, that is, a mind that is empty and untroubled by all other things, and that has secretly yielded itself up with all its powers in the Presence of God. To that man will be given freedom of spirit and supernatural grace; he will be exalted in mind above all forms and fashions, and will soar above all created things. St Gregory speaks of it thus: "If we would come to the knowledge of invisible things, we must look beyond all things that are visible."
The length is eternity, where there is no before and no after; but where all is still and unchanging, and in which all things exist, in a steady unchanging vision of Him, in whom all things exist. This length must be sought by man in a steady, unchanging and humble spirit; unchanging in God, and renouncing all love, all sorrow and all creatures, that he man be satisfied in God, may rest in peace, and may leave all things to God. Thus the noble word: Transite, will be accomplished; for man will overcome all things, and will be filled with the divine Birth of this lovely, noble Virgin, to whom all men should pay great honour. However highly they may be exalted, they should give time and trouble to honour and serve her. May we also follow her, that we may also come to that Birth by the help of God. Amen.
SERMON IV; On the Feast of St Stephen or of St Lawrence
Of the three Grades of those who learn here to die to themselves in Nature and Spirit, that they may (like the Grain of Wheat) bring forth much fruit; viz. of those who are beginning, of those who are advancing, and of those who are perfect.
"Unless the grain of wheat, falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit."
By the Wheat we understand our Lord Jesus Christ, Who by His Death has brought forth much fruit for all men, if they are but willing, not only to reign with Him, but also, and in the first place, desire to follow Him in a dying life. For this may be called a dying life, when a man for the love of God refuses to gratify his senses and take his natural pleasure, and follow his own will; and as many lusts as he dies to, so many deaths does he offer to God, and so many fruits of life will he receive in return. For in what measure a man dies to himself, and grows out of himself, in the same measure does God, Who is our Life, enter into him.